Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation Committee)]: Are you all

[Jordan St. Onge (Highway Superintendent and Road Commissioner, Town of Morristown)]: still alive?

[Therese Kirby (Town Manager, Bethel)]: Good picture, okay.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation Committee)]: Are we live?

[Therese Kirby (Town Manager, Bethel)]: You're live.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation Committee)]: I'd like to welcome everybody here. This is House and Senate Transportation Committee members, and we're here to hear It's Municipal Advocacy Day, and we're here to hear the league. I think the first thing we do is we might start with each of you introduce yourself around the table.

[Tom Lauzon (Mayor, Barre City)]: Good morning, I am Chris Kieser. I am representative from Rockland State.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Hinesburg)]: Morning, Phil Pouch, represent Heinzburg.

[Therese Kirby (Town Manager, Bethel)]: Hello, I'm Chloe Tomlinson and I represent Winooski. I'm Kate Lowy and I represent Shelburne.

[Ted Brady (Executive Director, Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: Tim Gordon, I represent Bennington District 2.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation Committee)]: And I'm Richard Westman. I chair the Senate Transportation Committee, and I represent, the Lamoille District. And I'm Rebecca White, and I represent the Windsor County District, and I'm

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair, Senate Transportation Committee)]: the vice chair of this committee.

[Ted Brady (Executive Director, Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: And I'm Pat Brennan. I represent Grand Isle County and Colchester. I'm Senator Andrew Perchlik, represent the Washington District, which is Washington County, Orange, Braintree, and Stowe.

[Therese Kirby (Town Manager, Bethel)]: Representative Pamela White, I live in Weitzfield, I represent Washington County too.

[Ted Brady (Executive Director, Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: Sen. Casey, so we're up and along.

[Jordan St. Onge (Highway Superintendent and Road Commissioner, Town of Morristown)]: Kenwell along with County 3.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation Committee)]: And chair of House Transportation Committee is just walking around the table, and he's from Swanton.

[Jordan St. Onge (Highway Superintendent and Road Commissioner, Town of Morristown)]: She's helping the litter pick her up, so I'm eighty

[Tom Lauzon (Mayor, Barre City)]: nine forty

[Jordan St. Onge (Highway Superintendent and Road Commissioner, Town of Morristown)]: four thousand tons in the next week.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation Committee)]: And since you're late, we're gonna get started and you can give your hats out bigger.

[Tom Lauzon (Mayor, Barre City)]: Ted, you're first.

[Ted Brady (Executive Director, Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: Good morning, everybody.

[Kyle Rowe (Town Clerk/Treasurer, Panton)]: I'm Ted Brady.

[Ted Brady (Executive Director, Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: I'm the executive director of the Vermont League of Cities and Towns. I want to start by thanking you for having this hearing today. As you all know, this is probably the number one topic that every municipality spends most of their time talking about. And as transportation experts, you all know the familiar eightytwenty funding point of one that generally is how the feds spread their money around. 80% federal, 20% state and local. But at VLCT we use a different similar eightytwenty formula, which is in Vermont, as you know, I think our members know, 83% Vermont's roads are operated, owned, maintained, constructed by local government and 17% by state government. We've all heard that stat before but it's really astounding. We're talking about 15,671 miles in a network. Of that class one, class two, and class three, and class four roads and state highways And so it's always a good place to ground us today. You all know that. I need to say it again. You also know that local government, our budgets, the things that you all roll out at the time, are more than 50% transportation dollars. That's most of the budget. I estimate that my communities are spending more than a half billion dollars in local property tax dollars that they're raising on their own at airtime meetings on transportation budgets. It's probably at this point, the last time I did it was four years ago where I did the math, it's probably at this point approaching 3 quarters of $1,000,000,000. Going back to that eightytwenty rule, 80 three-seventy five rule, I just compare that half billion dollars to the amount of money that the state is able by contributing to local roads. About $100,000,000 in saving $200,000,000 that you folks allocate to transportation of what you're approaching a billion dollars this year in a transportation budget. So really the exact inverse of that 87, sorry 80. About 10% of the state budget is being spent on 83% of states. I hear that statistic not because you're not doing enough, and everybody in this room today who came from their communities knows that the Senate and the Transportation Committee's historically been great allies of local transportation. Specifically, I want to thank Chair Walker and the House Transportation Committee for trying to find last year, for pegging the local programs to the number they were at last year and trying to hold that number. I want to thank him again and the committee for the work that he did to try to be creative this year. Josh Hanford reminds me our theory on local transportation and transportation dollars is every single options on the table to solve this problem. So thank you for thinking that. I also need to thank Chair Westman and the Senate Transportation Committee for being really creative and thoughtful this year trying to find new money for local transportation programs. That doesn't mean the problem's not there. And I think Vermonters need to understand that we are actually in a crisis when it comes to local transportation funding. I like to say, I just had a 16 year old kid get his license and this was his birthday gift. I can't fix it but I gave him that fix it but that and I think I have my AAA card in there right there. I gave him a AAA membership and you know it's kind of a catchy thing to do for your kid when they turn 16. But the reality is in many of our communities you'd be foolish not to drive with can't fix a flat in a AAA card because the roads are in horrible shape. We cannot afford to maintain our roads. And I can't fix a flat in a AAA card is not a sound transportation policy. Until we find a way to increase local highway at state level, we need to allow towns to raise credit. We need to allow towns all options. So you've heard Josh and Samantha in your committee talk about this. We need more diverse consumption taxes. We need the ability to raise more taxes at the local level. We need to allow for higher local option taxes at the local level. 1% is not enough, especially when the state's taken 25% of it. This is the number one thing, I know you're all in other committees and on floor talking about this this year, we need to solve the property tax crisis in this state. Because the increasing property tax is consuming all of the taxing authority and taxing capacity that our municipalities have. I'm not just here to complain. You've heard VLCT's policy recommendations before, but I need to say this in front of the members. Every two years, we can meet our members to try to create a policy that our membership can vote on as a whole. All two fifty seven towns and cities vote on our transportation policy. And this year we brought you about five bullet point partners asking you, you heard this, to diversify the increased transportation fund revenue sources. I think both committees have done a nice job trying to find them. Direct the full purchase and use tax on motor vehicles to the transportation fund. Both committees have been advocating for this, so we really appreciate that. We haven't gotten to the fund one of remitting a portion of registration fees and excess weight permit fees to municipalities where the vehicles are registered. We haven't gotten to the full funding of highway aid, town structures, and town bridges programs according to need, but we're working on that with you and we really appreciate that. We're hoping that we can provide incentives for municipalities to take over state highways that function on main streets. And we're hoping that we can allow Etrans to enter into agreements with municipalities for use of state owned equipment for small transportation what are our priorities that we brought to you this week? Don't worry, I'm done. We've got people who actually are in the trenches every day that I hope you can have a conversation with about their needs. But before formally wrapping up, I want to thank you for working with our intergovernmental relations team, Josh Hanford and Samantha Sheen, who have been with you for the whole session and they're here as, they're not just here to listen to you and try to influence you, they are here to be your allies and to be your sources of information. That policy I mentioned is backed by 10,000 local officials, select board members, the highway supervisors, clerks, listers, go down the list and all of the employee people that work in our cities and towns. They can't be here every day if we really rely on Josh and Samantha to represent them. But thank you. I'm sticking around for the day. So if you have questions for me, I'm happy to answer them at the end. But I think my main job here, if it's okay with you, Mr. Chairman, is to invite our first actual municipal official.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation Committee)]: Well, Josh was on our schedule was next.

[Josh Hanford (Director of Intergovernmental Relations, VLCT)]: I was just going to do that. Director, John Camper, BLCT. As Ted said, we have a lot of members here. So we want them to speak to you. I was simply just gonna reference who we've got and spoke to know which order to go up and give a little flavor for who they are. We have the mayor of Barrie joining you next. We have a highway superintendent from Morristown. Then we have a town manager from Bethel. We have a town clerk and treasurer from Hampton, a town administrator from Palace and a select board member from Royalton to join you. And just really appreciate you giving us the time to talk through and to hear what our members, we know you are advocates and understand most of this, but we see our job is to help you advocate these needs across your other committees. We know you don't control all the money or the purse strings or the taxing authority. So we to here to help you with that process. I'll turn it over to the mayor to kick things off. Thank you.

[Therese Kirby (Town Manager, Bethel)]: Don't forget your fix again.

[Josh Hanford (Director of Intergovernmental Relations, VLCT)]: That's staying. That's

[Therese Kirby (Town Manager, Bethel)]: I'll take it.

[Kyle Rowe (Town Clerk/Treasurer, Panton)]: Morning.

[Ted Brady (Executive Director, Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: For

[Tom Lauzon (Mayor, Barre City)]: those of you who don't know me, I'm Tom Lozon. It's my honor to serve as the mayor of Erie City. Thank you for letting me be here. You know, when they said I could they said I could use the fix and flat as a prop. Yeah. And now that honestly, that's so you know why? I'll see your fix and flat and raise you four Corelli p six tires. And that's a fact. If you wanna fact check me, call DJ Hardiker. I've to purchase four tires. Run flat, by the way, is a lie. They don't. We need to dig enough pothole to close the sidewall out and they won't run flat.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation Committee)]: I think the reason they left it exempt.

[Tom Lauzon (Mayor, Barre City)]: Chairman Westman, Chairman Walker, members of committee, thank you again for allowing me the opportunity to speak this morning. You know, I want to start with a bit of optimism and gratitude, because I think it helps. This could be worse. Truly could. It could be a lot worse. I know that these committees, I follow your work, you have worked really hard in recent years to advance funding strategies, and most importantly, to stop further reductions in the transportation fund. Sincerely, we thank you for that. So in some respects, I know this morning I'm preaching to the choir. There's nothing I'm going to tell you that you don't already know. There's no math I can present to you that you haven't already done. And I understand that. But unfortunately, as you know, even when we look at the good work you've done, when we account for inflation, you know that we've lost ground. We're actually doing less paving, less work today than we were ten years ago. Unlike so many problems in Vermont and nationwide, our current transportation funding crisis is relatively easy to quantify. It's just math. We know how many miles of roads we have to maintain. We know how many tensions we're responsible for. We know how much each mile of paving costs. Although, you know, there are always variables there, such as the current conflict in Iran that we all know is gonna drive predicted to drive paving costs up upwards of 30 to 40%. And lastly, we have a great state lab up in Berlin that can actually predict with relative certainty how quickly our roads will go from good to poor. You've already done the math. I'm sure you have. So you you certainly know the cost. But, you know, this funding crisis is a little unique, because unlike other funding challenges, this problem grows exponentially. For example, and some may argue with this example, but if we assist 60% of our unhoused providers in finding homes, we'll have roughly 2,000 reminders who are unhoused next year. Now, some may wanna argue the numbers that, you know, it'll be a little higher, it'll be a little lower, but they can't argue the basic premise that if we house 60% of the currently unhoused Vermonters, the unhoused population will go down. That's not the case, as you all know, with transportation funding. If we fund only 60% of the cost, problem will grow exponentially next year and exponentially the year after that.

[Ted Brady (Executive Director, Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: Of course,

[Tom Lauzon (Mayor, Barre City)]: you all know that. So I'll talk a little bit about my favorite subject, Barrie Vermont. Route 14 and Route 302, for those of you who have driven Barrie, occupies much of our city. It's really the main thoroughfares. Our main street is actually Route 302. Rio Route 302, if you live in Central Vermont and you use heating oil, chances are the truck that hauled that heating oil went down 302 and went through Berry City. That's kind of the major connector between Portland, between those ports and Central Vermont. And these roads, as we all know, are in pretty poor condition. It forces us in Barrie, you know, and we're told and listen, I like everybody. I I've been doing this too long. So I take everyone at face value, and I like everybody. Poor secretary Clinton. His office is in Barrie now. It's on the 1st Floor. So if I'm downtown walking around, I often am. All I have to do is walk about 20 steps off the sidewalk, and I'm at his window, and I bang on it. And I say, Joe, I'm coming in. And we have a chat about ropes. So I'm pretty sure that secretary Flynn is wishes his office was on the 2nd Floor.

[Jordan St. Onge (Highway Superintendent and Road Commissioner, Town of Morristown)]: I I could find the latter for the record.

[Tom Lauzon (Mayor, Barre City)]: It's 18400. But I get more currently, I get more complaints truly about potholes and the condition of the roads in Barrie City than I do any other issue, than public safety, than water main breaks, than loose dogs running around. You know, when you're a small town mayor, you get you're aware all the plates seem to find themselves. But I get more complaints about roads, and some of them honestly break your heart when makes you wanna break out of your own wallet. When a single mom writes to you and says, you know, I'm I'm raising three kids. I'm struggling, and I blew out a tire on a pothole, that's $200 and now I've got some choices to make. And that's happening more and more frequently, unfortunately. So we have the same problem in Barrie City that we have on a statewide basis. Obviously, different numbers. Barrie is only a city that's four square miles, 8,400 residents. But we had much the same problem. So I can show you that problem graphically, I apologize, I didn't bring extra copies, but it's gonna look very familiar. So this is just a graph that runs from 2017 to 2030. The big yellow bars are our funding deficit. In other words, our inability to keep up with the cost of payment. So back here, where you see the blue line is where we need to be, and the red line is where we've been. And starting in 2017, I was actually mayor back then. I served from 2006 to 2018, then stepped away from a bit and when the for a bit. And then when the city flooded, I I stepped up. And but this where you see that line dip a little bit, that was my board decision. That was my final year in office after twelve years of service. We we were looking at a fairly significant property tax increase. And so there were some members of the council who said, hey, Tom, if we just reduce the transportation budget, we can we can hit our target in terms of our property tax changes. I made a mistake, I made a bad choice and I agree. Selfishly, I didn't want my legacy to be I was guiding when he left office for a stat. I remember that mistake, when I made a mistake, I remember it. And so in the years that followed, two mayors followed me and I kept waiting. Like, when has someone been calling me stupid? Because I was. When are they gonna call me out? And they never did. They did the same thing. They kept underfunding our transportation budget, because no one wants to be that guy. And so when I returned to office two years ago in '24, I remembered that mistake. And interestingly, just last Tuesday, I presented a five year plan to the city council. We're actually two years into it. I started doing it quietly two years ago when I said, we're going to increase. At the very last meeting as we were setting the warning for the city meeting, town meeting, I said to them, we're gonna increase our transportation budget by 33%. I put them right on the spot. So who was gonna say no? Everybody wanted to get reelected. So So they went along with it, and we increased our transportation, our paving budget by 33%. This year, I did the same thing, smaller percentage only, 25%, still a big double digit increase. And thankfully, supported. They recognized the need. They they could see the yellow cars as well as I could. We weren't keeping up. You know, we shouldn't be abruptly and and again, these numbers pale in comparison to what you're dealing with. We should have been at around a million one. Know, we were at 600 pounds. We were half. So like the state of Vermont, we were losing ground every year. You know, if if you don't fit 50 potholes this year, well, now you have a 100 a year after that, a 150 the year after that. And we kept making the same mistake for six years. So, thankfully, they went along with me. And then at the following meeting, I presented them with a plan. And keep in mind, as we're making these choices, as we're increasing our paving budget by 33 and then 25%, we're making hard choices. You know, I I would have liked to you know, literacy, especially children literacy, it just means everything to me. You know, I believe in it. I believe that when you teach a child to read, you open the world to them. But I had to make tough choices. Not everyone in Barrie City uses the library, I have to recognize that. Not everyone in Barrie City uses our cards, I have to recognize that. But virtually everyone in Barrie City uses our roads. And they're not asking for a lot, they're simply asking for safe, smooth roads. And that simply wasn't the case. So as I explained to the council, we can get there. So this little one, the red line, the vertical line is just showing you kind of when I started. And this little thing that you can't read, I'm sorry, right here is we are here. This is where we are today. So we're in the second year of what I presented to the council as a three year plan. And I tell you, look, we're gonna have to make hard choices. There are things we're not going to be able we're gonna have to get used to saying no. We're gonna have to prioritize, but to me, that's what governing has always been about. We'll always have more problems than we have resources, always. So you have to learn how to prioritize and how to govern, and as I explained in council, of course we govern for the 2,000 people who use the library. I value it, I'll continue to contribute. But we have to govern first and foremost for the 8,400 people who live here, and they have to be our priority. And so that's the choice. Thankfully, that's the choice that we've made in Mary. And as I look at this, and and I know I'm preaching to the choir. Thank you for for the good work that you've done. You know, I should probably be sitting in front of the entire general assembly. We have to make hard choices, and these aren't easy choices. But like Berry City, when you look at the state of Vermont, not everyone uses our parks, we value them. Not everyone hunts, not everyone fishes, not everyone takes advantage of all of the amenities we have in Vermont, but everybody uses roads. And my choice now is, the one thing that I haven't quantified in this calculation is the fact that we're now expected to accept responsibility for roads, for maintaining roads, when it's not our responsibility to repay them. It is our responsibility to maintain them. I accept that. We have money in the budget for that. But now more and more, we're being asked to actually repave sections of state highways. And my biggest concern, I'll be very frank with you. You know, I I've been doing this a while. And every time I accept responsibility, a responsibility that should be a state responsibility, I am stuck with it forever. It it just always happens that way. So, you know, I I'm sitting here having to say to constituents, having to explain that to them, I'm sorry, your run flat doesn't run flat. I'm sorry you blew your tire out. I'm sorry you have to shorten your grocery budget by $200 because we couldn't accept our responsibility. But those are the choices that we are going to have to make. So, as I leave, it's what I did in Mary's today. Here's my message to you, and again, I know I'm preaching to the choir, you can quantify this problem. It may take us five or six years to to we're probably out of it, but what I see going on, and I see you fighting so hard for everything that you get, but what I see going on is is we're not fixing the problem. We're not presenting Vermonters with a plan to actually fix the problem. We're we're mitigating a lot. We're we're trying to prevent ourselves from going too far backwards year after year. But I've never seen a plan to actually fix the problem, whether it's a three year plan, a five year plan, a seven year plan, or I take a ten year plan at this point. And so that really is my message to the committee to, first of all, thank you for your good work. You give up a lot to be here. I know that. And so I thank you for that. And then lastly, I hope we can affect a plan that actually fixes the problem. Thank you very much. I'm sorry, did you want to ask me any questions? I apologize.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation Committee)]: Are you up for hire to come with Matt and I and travel around?

[Tom Lauzon (Mayor, Barre City)]: You let me know. You let me know. I'm up by profession. I'm a tax accountant and senior partner at an accounting firm. You're aware of that. I am campaigning right now and I'm having a lot of fun doing that. But if you need a wingman, you call me.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation Committee)]: We might take you off on that.

[Tom Lauzon (Mayor, Barre City)]: Anytime. I'm sorry, any other questions? No, we're good. Thank you very much.

[Kyle Rowe (Town Clerk/Treasurer, Panton)]: Jordan, how are

[Tom Lauzon (Mayor, Barre City)]: you? Good, thank you.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation Committee)]: Nice to see you.

[Jordan St. Onge (Highway Superintendent and Road Commissioner, Town of Morristown)]: Thank you for taking the time to see us today. My name is George St. Anh, and I'm the High School Superintendent and Road Commissioner for the town of Morristown. Morristown has the highest town highway mileage in Memorial County at 92.13 miles, and we also have nine miles of town maintained sidewalk and 17 town maintained structures. For the upcoming fiscal year Morristown has passed a total municipal budget of approximately $10,400,000 and a significant 30% of that, roughly 3,100,000 is dedicated solely to highway maintenance. While we are grateful for the $240,000 we have budgeted for state aid to highways, it's important to note that this offsets less than 8% of our highway maintenance costs. Furthermore, these figures cover routine upkeep, only routine upkeep. To address the mounting need for capital improvements, our voters recently took the proactive step of approving a separate $233,500 article specifically for our bridge and infrastructure fund and adopting local options taxes. The math of road maintenance is simple but punishing. The longer we wait, the more it costs. And paving a road wall is in good to fair condition is the only risk for the responsible strategy. As the condition of a road deteriorates, the amount of asphalt required to repair it increases and the cost of roads exponentially. I'm sure you all know this but we'll work through it paving roads when they're in good to fair condition is the most cost effective strategy, and it can be done with a simple overlay and costs our town around $50,000 per mile. If a road falls to poor condition, it requires more costly pavement treatment, like a Shimon overlay, and costs roughly $132,000 per mile. This is 164% more expensive than paving the road when it is in good to fair condition. If the road falls into very poor condition, it requires even more costly pavement treatment, and we will generally follow a parking plane and pave up to four inches of asphalt, and the cost of that is around 2 and 87,000 per mile. That's 424% more expensive than paving the road when it's in good to fair condition. In 2024, Morristown contracted Greenman Inc. To conduct a payment condition analysis for a town, and they stated that the strategy of fixing roads in poor condition instead of preserving good roads is known as the worst first approach and generally regarded as the least cost effective strategy. The common analogy is changing the oil in your car is more cost effective than waiting for the engine to cease and replacing the engine. When we lack the funds as a town to preserve good roads, we're forced into a worst first approach, which is the least cost effective way to spend our taxpayers dollars. Since the GPI payment condition assessment was done in 2024, we have paid 3.8 miles of town highway, but 15.6 of our 36.8 miles of paved town highway is still in port to very poor condition. That is 42.4% of our paved town highway network and represents a 3.2 backlog in paving to point 8% increase to our general budget due to inflationary pressures totaling a 13.4% property tax increase if we funded this project strictly off property tax increases. This does not account for the deterioration of our roads that are currently in good or fair condition. As a result, the voters in Morristown passed local options tax this year. Our only funding source outside property taxes and LOT is the town highway class roadway program. The maximum grant award for that is $200,000 which is around 25% of our annual community needs. Less than half of Morris Town's paved roads are class two, meaning 58% of our paved roads are not eligible for this grant program and rely solely on property tax increases and LOT for paving. Over nine miles of sidewalk, where 47,000 feet, 6,000 feet is in very poor condition, representing a $600,000 backlog. Part of our five year plan is to replace 1,500 feet of sidewalk per year at a cost of roughly $150,000 per year. If not for LOT, this would represent a 1.7% increase in our town budget and when it's done in conjunction with paving equals an 8.3% increase

[Tom Lauzon (Mayor, Barre City)]: and then

[Jordan St. Onge (Highway Superintendent and Road Commissioner, Town of Morristown)]: on top of the 6.8 increase on our general budget due to inflation that would represent a 15.1% increase on property taxes to achieve this five year plan. Most of Morristown's 17 structures are noted in the VTrans Bridge report as needing repairs, including several that need significant work, including repair or replacement of bridge decks and abutments. And our only funding source for bridge repair outside property tax increases and LOT is the town highway structure program with a max award amount of $200,000 We recently held a competitive bid process to paint one of our bridges in town and the low bid on that project was $286,000 just to paint it. In summary, the current state funding levels fall short of municipalities needs. The V Transtown Highway aid program offsets just 7.7% of our maintenance budget. The funding for special projects like paving, sidewalk replacement, and bridge repairs rely solely on grant funding, property tax increases, and LOT. Grant funding for paving meets 25% of Morristown's annual needs, and that's if we are awarded the class two roadways grant every year. The current class two roadway program guidelines exclude the majority of Morristown's paved town highways. Grant funding for sidewalks falls short of Morristown's annual needs at 50% and again this is if we are awarded. That would be through the V Trans Small Scale Bike Pet Grant. That is an incredibly valuable program for us and we love it. We would like to have it on a yearly basis. Grant funding for bridge repairs fall short in need based on project cost versus award maximum and the cost of just for painting a bridge exceeds the maximum potential grant offered to the town highway structure program.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation Committee)]: That's all I got for you, Dara. At Shushu, you've done a great job. Thank you.

[Tom Lauzon (Mayor, Barre City)]: Thank you.

[Ted Brady (Executive Director, Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: If you'd like, can submit your testimony so we can have that online for you can give that to one of the assistants. That'd be great if

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation Committee)]: you can put that online.

[Therese Kirby (Town Manager, Bethel)]: I'm Therese Kirby. You for having me. Welcome, Therese. I'm the town manager for the call, and I appreciate you taking the time to hear my testimony today. Bethel has 88 miles of road, of which we maintain approximately 68 miles. 11 of those are paved and 57 miles of gravel. We maintain this with one full time road foreman and two full time road crew members. We hire seasonal employees for plowing as we've been unable to fill another full time position for the last several years. As town manager in a small town, I'm also the road commissioner, the zoning administrator. So you have a lot of titles in a small town. So I'm also road commissioner, so oversee work, bids, etcetera. So I'm going to quote kind of what Ted was saying, that Vermont is approximately 14,000 miles of road, with only about 17 to 20 managed by state highways. 80% are managed by towns. That leaves small towns like Bethel to bear the financial burden of maintaining not only roads, but bridges and culverts. And with 10.4% of Bethel's population living below the poverty level, that makes infrastructure dollars even harder to come by. Maintaining infrastructure is not just about the increased cost of materials, fuel, and manpower, which I think Jordan did a great job covering. It's about the cost of equipment, something to think about since COVID is the cost of yellow steel. In 2021, the town of Bethel purchased a new Western Star, Cloud Truck, for $198,095 In 2023, we purchased another one for $259,020 And I just signed the order to purchase another one at 329,007 and $98 That's a 66.48% increase in just five years. We're talking similar truck here. So, my example for today is a road that most of you probably know is Camp Brook Road. It connects Bethel to Rochester and is used as a main commuter route for people working in Randolph, White River, etcetera, also regularly used by the ambulance. Camp Brook is a class two town highway in Bethel of which of the portion that we maintain is 6.11 miles one of places maintains the other side. It's also a federal highway which really only does you any good if it floods. So Bethel receives $57,147 in Class II highway or $47.86 per mile. So for Camp Brook, that equates to $28,716 a year, so less than $30 a year. From July 25 to April 15, at the breakdown that I've already given you my slide. So we spent $66,000 already over that. We currently have a paving project out to bid. And because we did not receive a paving grant, we're in a six to seven year rotation until we can even get one. We are spending 3 and $55,000 to $400,000 out of our Capital Road fund, hoping to get just 0.9 miles paved. But due to the increase in the paving costs, obviously we've delayed the bid a little bit because the cost of fuel, so we're waiting. We're also doing an asphalt adjustment. But this one project to get less than a mile is going to take half, 48%, 50% of what we even have in

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation Committee)]: our capital to do this project.

[Therese Kirby (Town Manager, Bethel)]: I did review the document from 01/09/2026. It was created by Logan very on the transportation fund. And I think the entire motor vehicle purchase and use tax should go to the transportation fund instead of sending a third of it to education fund. I'm probably saying that, but you'd all probably agree. And I was reading it, and this was saying that it would generate $148,900,000 with $99,000,000 going to transportation and 49,600,000 going to the Ed Fund. And since there seems to be $166,000,000 of federal transportation money available that you need to find the $33,000,000 match for, to me, it seems like that may be a help with the current funding issue as well as major future funding issues. I also think the legislature should adjust the local option tax. It did not pass in We've tried and we'll try again for the same reason other towns are doing it, but it didn't pass in Bethel two years ago. But we'll try again, but I do hope that a higher percentage of that money stays in local communities that have adopted LOT and that they should return United Future Surplus to municipalities as new appropriations and not as replacement revenue to offset the state's obligation related to reappraisal. So I'm sure that you're all aware of it, but on a day to day level, and I've been in municipal government for over twenty years, and it's a struggle every day. And we talk to people delinquent, I also have been delinquent tax collector, So we're all trying to stretch a dollar. So anything that you can do to help us, we greatly appreciate it because we need help.

[Kyle Rowe (Town Clerk/Treasurer, Panton)]: Do have any questions at all?

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation Committee)]: Thank you so much. Thank you.

[Kyle Rowe (Town Clerk/Treasurer, Panton)]: Thank you, representatives and senators. It's the committee. My name is Kyle Rowe. I'm the town clerk treasurer of Panton, Vermont. I'm also the representative for Panton to the Transportation Advisory Committee with Addison County Regional Planning. Also the town's emergency Management Coordinator, also the Town's representative. We have host of other things. Yes, as Teresa, we wear a lot of hats. PAN, just as some brief information, PAN has approximately 24 miles per road, our population about six sixty people. We're definitely on the smaller side of Vermont municipalities, of which 15 miles of those 24 miles are paved. Most of them are Class II and III. We have 22A, which runs through Bannen as our only kind of Class I. And so, you know, we don't have very many Class IV or legal trails. You know, we talk a lot today about costs and as folks have said, we're preaching to the choir or if not, it's the converted at least. Penn has a municipal budget of approximately $1,000,000 of which Ted mentioned that 50% of the average municipal budget is for transportation, ours is actually closer to 70%. But that 70%, you know, offers us opportunities for other kinds of savings or, you know, the offsetting of expenses, which I'll get to in a moment. Cost drivers for painting, like any other town, the cost of sand, the cost of salt, the cost of gravel, the cost of paving, the cost of plow blades, the cost of equipment, the cost of motor oil, because we do so many repairs in house, the cost of tires, all the various and sundry things, the incidentals that go into the cost drivers for a small municipal town. But really one of the biggest cost drivers, and I think that I would encourage you as just general, not even members of the Transportation Committee, but general representatives of Vermont, is to think about the other incidentals that go into the cost drivers for highway budgets. We're talking salaries and benefits. We're talking the cost of insurance. We're talking the things that we could do. Of my 600 and approximately $700,000 transfer to hydrobudget in town, almost 10%, a little bit more actually, goes to the cost of health insurance for my employees. I only have two. I have a road foreman and a highway member. And yet we've dropped our health insurance coverage for our people. We offer dental and vision and things like that, we've dropped those levels of coverages. And we're still talking about cost increases. So I would encourage you as members to think about this as a systemic problem with costs, not necessarily in transportation funding. If 10% of my budget is going to health insurance costs, that's 10% that's not going to the roads in terms of maintaining But those are necessary components to keeping highway members and highway crew kind of engaged in the municipal process. Phoenix Feeds, just down the road from us in New Haven, was offering a job for Class B CDL drivers. They were paying $90,000 a year with benefits to people for a four day work week to deliver feed. Now, I don't mind competition, unfortunately, to attract competent and qualified highway personnel, and we're talking about needing to match private sector salaries and benefits for things like that, it's a very difficult situation for town. So I would just encourage you to think kind of act locally, think globally, but think about the systemic costs associated with the towns. We are not, I am personally not just here to talk necessarily about the costs, as we have heard quite a bit of that. We are also thinking we can talk about some of the solutions. And as Therese mentioned, vehicle costs. Panton is experiencing that right now. We're looking at new vehicle. We put money aside. We are considering bank loans. But one of the things that the committee members could be considering is the expansion of the municipal equipment loan funds to make that larger, more broad, or perhaps just increase the size to allow for vehicle purchases at low interest rates for municipalities, zero interest rates, really, for municipalities to then be able to buy that expensive piece of equipment. Another could be the expansion of the grant programs. As Jordan said, the Class II is really difficult. We've been the beneficiary last year of the structures grant, which offset the cost of $100,000 in terms of culvert replacement. But the expansion of those projects, or perhaps even smaller targeted grants to allow towns to do culverts that aren't such massive projects, would also be helpful. Better Backroads, grant and aid are both helpful in that regard, but still kind of only kind of scratch the surface of those total costs. My particular issue, and I'm speaking here strictly as a person who's been in this job now for just a little over a year and a half, but also as a person who kind of is a taxpayer and engaged in the process, not as a member of the TAC committee announcing kind of regional planning, his overweight vehicle permit. I think that's an issue where we've seen the costs associated with towns increase and the matching revenue and administrative costs and revenue that they received from the permittees as not increasing. We're also dealing with housing a county being an incredibly agricultural community, we're dealing with the fact that there's so many agricultural exemptions. And while we recognize the strength and the economic benefit that those farms provide, not to mention the land use and things like that. We're also talking about some of those vehicles weighing in excess of 150,000 pounds, twice the weight of a fully loaded semi, traveling on town roads, delivering fertilizer, delivering manure, delivering seeds and things like that, and being completely exempt from both the permitting process, or if not exempt from the permitting process, the enforcement of the permitting process, and not being able to be kind of participating members in the shared maintenance of the roads that they rely on to be able to transport goods, services, and inputs to their farm fields. That's a particular issue of mine is seeing that we go through vehicle overweight permitting, and we're kind of mid thrust on that right now, and it's $5 for a truck, 10 for a fleet of vehicles. And the town expects maybe between 600 and $800 in revenue from the administrative costs. That does not cover the cost now for my office, which is me and a part time assistant clerk to then track down the certificates of insurance to make sure that the process is followed and done correctly. So those are a couple of different options that we could look at, kind of the idea of health insurance or insurance in general, the idea of expansion of the mouth, the idea of the expansion of the grant programs, and then perhaps the fine tuning of the overweight vehicle permitting that we could maybe either offer different sources of revenue or offer different sources of revenue offsets to these participating communities. One of the other, and like many of my colleagues, I do support the waterfall provision that was in kind of iterations of the bills about the lot surplus. I think that that would be incredibly helpful to small towns. Lot revenue is generated by individual communities, but those individual communities revenue relies on the surrounding communities. For example, Virgins, the smallest city in Vermont is surrounded by Panhand, among other small towns. And the sale of meal tax, the sales tax, all the various and sundry lot taxes that they levy are generated by not just the residents or tenants, but by the local community. And so the equitable spreading of that lot revenue as transportation additional revenue, not offset revenue, is a really important component, something that I would urge the members to support. One of the other issues is kind of grant management. Many towns in Vermont, we had damage through July 2024 flooding. We went through the FEMA grant process. Grant management from a perspective of a small municipal town is a difficult thing to overcome because, again, one person is now doing this. In response, I'm as the Emergency Management Coordinator. I'm Chief Gok and Bottle Walk, doing all aspects of FEMA reporting and all aspects of the grand reporting for disaster relief. And I have to say that the state has been fantastic in that process, and I really appreciate the Department of Public Safety. I appreciate our friends at VTrans and AOT for helping us in that process. So I have no complaints from the help that we're receiving from the state. But I think that we could see an expansion or an advocacy that those federal dollars are managed by the state. As I can pick up the phone and talk to somebody in AOT or talk to somebody in B TRANS, talk to somebody in the Department of Public Safety, whereas I can't necessarily get that same conversation going with a person at federal government level, particularly when it comes to disaster relief. And so I would encourage an expansion of that area as well. Grant management is a huge source of revenue for us. Last year, we received an annual, dollars 1,000,000 budget, we received an additional $186,000 in revenue from grants that I wrote. And we're grateful for that. But that's nearly a full time job in and of itself to do the reporting and the various other things for grant revenue. So I think that we've heard a lot about costs. There's some possible solutions out there. There are possible avenues forward where we're not talking about necessarily an increase in tax and property tax. We're talking about revenue offsets for towns, opportunities for additional or different sources of funding. And I think those are all really important areas of consideration as well for yourselves and just as both transportation committee members and members general.

[Tom Lauzon (Mayor, Barre City)]: Thank you. Thank you.

[Kyle Rowe (Town Clerk/Treasurer, Panton)]: Morning. My

[Kari Remillard (Town Administrator, Calais)]: name is Kari Ramileh. I'm the town administrator in Calip. I'm also the road commissioner and the trader. Seems to be a penis.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation Committee)]: I've got a few jokes.

[Ted Brady (Executive Director, Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: I appreciate the opportunity to

[Kari Remillard (Town Administrator, Calais)]: speak about our transportation system from the Callis perspective. Callis is a mid sized town, just under 1,700 population. And we're only 10 miles north of here, but very rural in our character. We've got 91 miles of road total. Some of those are state highways, Route 14. And 73 miles are class two and three, which we maintain on a daily basis, almost entirely gravel. We also have over 600 culverts and five bridges in various states of repair, disrepair. A little bit about our highway department, we self perform most of our work all except for the paving of our largest capital projects. We have four and a half full time equivalents. We operate a garage with a full fleet of four dump trucks, two pickups, two graders, many other pieces of equipment. Our town budget in the next fiscal year will be $2,300,000. Our highway budget is 1,200,000. And that's a 43% increase from five years ago. The key drivers as you've heard are medical insurance equipment. I think you heard about 10,000,000 dump trucks with bio bodies are going for around 350,000 breeders or close to $400,000. Equipment maintenance is also incredibly expensive, partly because there's so few players. Our crew is driving often 50 miles to get a repair done. We're paying top dollar and hoping for the class. Rotomainous materials, sand, gravel, salt, and wages of course. So I have two main points I wanted to share with you today. One is that the state aid that we're receiving currently is critical to what we do. Both in terms of our just normal operations, the annual state aid payments are about 15 percent of our highway budget, and that allows us to maintain and keep up with this severe cost inflation that we've been seeing. But also in terms of the special projects, we try to access as many grants as we have the capacity for the structures, Class II Highway. Those are very important for us to do the extra things that protect the safety of the roads, improve water quality, and hardening for the next flood. And so we really view the state as a critical partner in that, and we're each doing our part in providing safe and reliable roads for the people that use them and also helping out the folks that are downstream from us. And another thing I wanna emphasize is that our TAM is doing many things right. We have a really talented and dedicated crew. We have an excellent relationship with our employees union. We have a forward thinking select board, a solid capital planning process. We work with our RPC. Our taxpayers support us investment and still it's not enough. In terms of the key infrastructure projects that we have on our plate right now, we have one bridge that we hope to, if we get a structured grant this year, do some temporary repairs to shore up the abutments. We have a paving project that needs to happen if we get a class two highway grants and a section of it is down to the roadbed and will have to be reclaimed. We have four key culverts that need to be upgraded. Two of them failed in the 'twenty three and 'twenty four floods, and two others are in major pinch points in town. The hydraulic studies and engineering work that we've had on these culverts require much larger structures that range from quarter of 1,000,000 to a $1,000,000 for these projects. And and then the biggest project in town is a bridge in the heart of East Kalts Village on one of the busiest roads in town that's way beyond its useful life. And there's only about half the span that it needs to be based on what should be the bankable width of that stream. So $2,100,000 project in today's dollars, it doesn't seem to be eligible for any federal grants, at least at this time, and we're not sure how we're going to deal with it. So just giving you a sense of what we're dealing with and doing our best with it.

[Ted Brady (Executive Director, Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: The other thing I wanna emphasize, and

[Kari Remillard (Town Administrator, Calais)]: just a big picture level is the value of the transportation system to our town of the residents. So nothing that you don't already know and that all Vermonters don't know. But in two years in this role, I have a new appreciation for just what a fundamental importance our roads are to our rural way of life. The floods of 'twenty three and 'twenty four reinforce that importance, and they also revealed the vulnerability of our system. And I really feel that a safe and reliable road system with a fee condition for Vermonters to to to be able to live here and fund our state and local government. And I really believe it's part of our identity, central to our identity. And not to mention that it's a key ingredient in terms of attracting newcomers and local development. So really urge you to consider all the different ways that we can enhance transportation budget.